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WISDOM QUOTE
We do not simply yearn for God; we are a yearning for him.
*Susan Muto. "East Meets West in the Stream of Spiritual History: The Ways of Negation and Affirmation." In Spiritual Life, Winter 2006.
COMMENTS
Yearning is our response to the ever-increasing sense of the Divine Presence. This longing is our reaching out, through the affect of the heart and from our finite and derived being, to the Infinite Being who sources all Nature.
Spiritual longing is not simply for an abstract principle or a mysterious otherness. Spiritual aspiration is for a connection with the Person of God.
From where does this spiritual ache for the Wonderful Presence arise? Imagine our selves as formed of differing aspects, yet these aspects form the unified person. The aspects are capacities of increasing subtleness as the movement increases toward and from Pure Spirit.
We start with matter: this is the material from which Spirit shapes all form. We, secondly, move to body: body is the shape given to form. Next, we arrive at mind: here is intelligence, or the capacity of thought. While emotion registers in matter-body, chiefly, if not wholly, it arises from mind. Matter-body registers all feeling states, but mind is the source of the states. We come, fourth, to soul. Soul is the capacity for religious devotion. We cannot locate a "thing" called soul, for soul is a subtle-energetic capacity, and soul is a frequency process of finer quality than the previous aspects. While matter-body in the history of evolution preceded the emergence of mind, a like process occurs in personal development in the life-span. Next, arises the most subtle capacity: spirit. Here is the Spirit, God, the Center, the Transpersonal, the Trinity, the Ground of Being, the Divine, the One, ... This is called by many names arising from the mind.
Now, back to the question of the source of our yearning for the Divine. Spiritual longing, due to being spiritual, can arise from only one aspect: spirit, or Spirit. This means that our longing for God arises not from ourselves but from God. And speaks of our union with Spirit. Since spirit is the point of contact, of oneness, with Spirit, our aspiration for the Divine arises from our union with God: our union with God is the fount of our yearning for God. And this yearning is the inner Witness to our true and native relation with Deity.
Often, therefore, in prayer, meditation, or contemplation, we will sense in all aspects of self an ache, arising from where we do not know. We sense Divine Presence within matter-body, mind, and soul.
Due to the oneness between the Divine and you, in the spirit and Spirit, the yearning is oneed in God and you. In the Center abides an indissoluble connection between the Divine and you. The aching has no object, such as is perceived by mind ~ for mind is the source of creating separation.
Let the yearning be prayer: Prayer of the Heart. Arising from the Heart, rejoice in shared aspiration, which connects you to God and all creation.
The ache is a call for the consecration and divinization of all we are, from matter to spirit, into conscious oneness with the Christ. The aspiration points to our divine destiny, the full evolution of our innate being~in~Christ.
REFLECTIONS
1. What do you think Muto means by writing that we are yearning?
2. Do you ever have a strong yearning for God arising within you? How might holding this in quiet awareness be a way of praying?
3. Do you think the yearning can threaten us? What about us does it threaten?
4. How do we silence the sometimes uncomfortable sensation of spiritual yearning?
SPIRITUAL EXERCISE
Write a psalm of longing in your own words. Or ... Paraphrase Psalm 63, making it your own prayer of yearning for God.
Brian is available to respond to requests pertaining to seeking a Spiritual Mentor, his speaking, leading classes, workshops, or retreats. See any major on-line bookseller for his book An Ache for Union.
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